RE: Better reasons to quit Christianity
August 20, 2012 at 8:06 pm
(This post was last modified: August 20, 2012 at 8:30 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
Sigh, again with this shit.
For an entity to be precognitive not only must they be able to know future events (from whatever vantage point, however they experience it), those events must occur, or else their ability is not precognition. If those events must occur......what room is there for choice? I don't need to mince words on this, I'm not interested in wiggling around until I find a favorable definition. A choice, in this context, is the simple act of turning left, or turning right, when presented with a fork in the road (for example). How-ever and why-ever you go which-ever way you go is unimportant to my point, completely, utterly, and entirely unimportant (that you found yourself on the road, unimportant, that no other options were presented, unimportant, no matter how thoroughly you are constrained by circumstance, if you have one path going you left, and one path going right, whichever you go down would be indicative of a choice, whatever it means to "make a choice").
Precognition is not the act of making accurate guesses with regards to whether someone will choose between a or b. It is knowledge, it is certain, it is inevitable. If it is not knowledge, if it is not certain, if it is not inevitable....it is not precognition.
If you could choose either a or b, the precogs experience of the timeline and your future choice be damned (from whatever vantage point, however they experience it), you have a choice...but the precog is no longer a precog. It becomes either a competent or incompetent gambler of competing possibilities (depending on whether or not their guess happened to be right in any given particular).
Is it more important to you that your god must be able to experience these future events and they must pan out as experienced....or is it more important to you that you have choices (and all that comes along with those choices) ala the narrative? One or the other is going to have to bend. A very simple example. Suppose that this precognitive god, experiencing the future as though it were the present, experienced me choosing a over b. Could I, when I approached that point in the timeline myself (experiencing time as we seem to experience it, in a linear fashion) - choose b?
For an entity to be precognitive not only must they be able to know future events (from whatever vantage point, however they experience it), those events must occur, or else their ability is not precognition. If those events must occur......what room is there for choice? I don't need to mince words on this, I'm not interested in wiggling around until I find a favorable definition. A choice, in this context, is the simple act of turning left, or turning right, when presented with a fork in the road (for example). How-ever and why-ever you go which-ever way you go is unimportant to my point, completely, utterly, and entirely unimportant (that you found yourself on the road, unimportant, that no other options were presented, unimportant, no matter how thoroughly you are constrained by circumstance, if you have one path going you left, and one path going right, whichever you go down would be indicative of a choice, whatever it means to "make a choice").
Precognition is not the act of making accurate guesses with regards to whether someone will choose between a or b. It is knowledge, it is certain, it is inevitable. If it is not knowledge, if it is not certain, if it is not inevitable....it is not precognition.
If you could choose either a or b, the precogs experience of the timeline and your future choice be damned (from whatever vantage point, however they experience it), you have a choice...but the precog is no longer a precog. It becomes either a competent or incompetent gambler of competing possibilities (depending on whether or not their guess happened to be right in any given particular).
Is it more important to you that your god must be able to experience these future events and they must pan out as experienced....or is it more important to you that you have choices (and all that comes along with those choices) ala the narrative? One or the other is going to have to bend. A very simple example. Suppose that this precognitive god, experiencing the future as though it were the present, experienced me choosing a over b. Could I, when I approached that point in the timeline myself (experiencing time as we seem to experience it, in a linear fashion) - choose b?
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
